Operation of lean burn engines, for example, diesel engines and lean burn gasoline engines, provide the user with excellent fuel economy and have low emissions of gas phase hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide due to their operation at high air/fuel ratios under fuel lean conditions. Additionally, diesel engines offer significant advantages over gasoline (spark ignition) engines in terms of their fuel economy, durability, and their ability to generate high torque at low speed.
From the standpoint of emissions, however, diesel engines present more severe problems than their spark-ignition counterparts. Because diesel engine exhaust gas is a heterogeneous mixture, emission problems relate to particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx), unburned hydrocarbons (HC), and carbon monoxide (CO).
Emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from lean burn engines must be reduced in order to meet emission regulation standards. Conventional three-way conversion (TWC) automotive catalysts are suitable for abating NOx, carbon monoxide a (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC) pollutants in the exhaust of engines operated at or near stoichiometric air/fuel conditions. The precise proportion of air to fuel which results in stoichiometric conditions varies with the relative proportions of carbon and hydrogen in the fuel. An air-to-fuel (A/F) ratio of 14.65:1 (weight of air to weight of fuel) is the stoichiometric ratio corresponding to the combustion of a hydrocarbon fuel, such as gasoline, with an average formula CH1.88. The symbol λ is thus used to represent the result of dividing a particular A/F ratio by the stoichiometric A/F ratio for a given fuel, so that; λ=1 is a stoichiometric mixture, λ>1 is a fuel-lean mixture and λ<1 is a fuel-rich mixture.
Engines, especially gasoline-fueled engines to be used for passenger automobiles and the like, are being designed to operate under lean conditions as a fuel economy measure. Such future engines are referred to as “lean burn engines.” That is, the ratio of air to fuel in the combustion mixtures supplied to such engines is maintained above the stoichiometric ratio so that the resulting exhaust gases are “lean,” i.e., the exhaust gases are relatively high in oxygen content. Although lean-burn engines provide advanced fuel economy, they have the disadvantage that conventional TWC catalysts are not effective for reducing NOx emissions from such engines because of excessive oxygen in the exhaust. Attempts to overcome this problem have included the use of a NOx trap. The exhaust of such engines is treated with a catalyst/NOx sorbent which stores NOx during periods of lean (oxygen-rich) operation, and releases the stored NOx during the rich (fuel-rich) periods of operation. During periods of rich (or stoichiometric) operation, the catalyst component of the catalyst/NOx sorbent promotes the reduction of NOx to nitrogen by reaction of NOx (including NOx released from the NOx sorbent) with HC, CO, and/or hydrogen present in the exhaust.
In a reducing environment, a lean NOx trap (LNT) activates reactions by promoting a steam reforming reaction of hydrocarbons and a water gas shift (WGS) reaction to provide H2 as a reductant to abate NOx. The water gas shift reaction is a chemical reaction in which carbon monoxide reacts with water vapor to form carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The presence of ceria in an LNT catalyzes the WGS reaction, improving the LNT's resistance to SO2 deactivation and stabilizing the PGM; ceria in an LNT also functions as a NOx storage component.
NOx storage materials comprising barium (BaCO3) fixed to ceria (CeO2) have been reported, and these NOx materials have exhibited improved thermal aging properties. Ceria, however, suffers from severe sintering upon hydrothermal aging at high temperatures. The sintering not only causes a decrease in low temperature NOx storage capacity and WGS activity, but also results in the encapsulation of BaCO3 and PGM by the bulk CeO2. Thus, there is a need for a ceria-containing catalyst that is hydrothermally stable.